Top Advisor To Australian Gov't Says Climate Change is a UN Conspiracy 525
An anonymous reader writes: Maurice Newman, the top business advisor to conservative Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, today published an opinion piece (paywalled) in which he claims, "It's a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models ... have been found ... to be in error." He goes on to write "This is not about facts or logic. It's about a new world order under the control of the UN." While Newman's 'skeptical' views have long been on record, it's unclear when he came to believe in this vast global conspiracy. Last year, the Abbott government removed Australia's Emissions Trading Scheme, and recently gave $4 million in funding to contrarian Bjorn Lomberg, while cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from science across the country.
Deniers (Score:3, Interesting)
Deniers will apparently just claim that "95%" of science is bogus if it disagrees with their pre-determined world view, causing cognitive dissonance.
How much you want to bet this lunatic is also a rabid fundamentalist following some ancient texts?
He's Right (Score:5, Funny)
The UN is a menace, and before long you will have to take your Mark on the forehead! Read your Bible!
-proud AR-15 owner.
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I would argue the generally accepted definition of average is proof that half of any population of anything is below average.
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Actually, the median, but whatever.
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Informative)
Deniers will apparently just claim that "95%" of science is bogus if it disagrees with their pre-determined world view, causing cognitive dissonance.
95% is the number they always 'quote', for some reason - presumably because they know it sounds daft to say 'I don't know how much, but I'm sure it's a lot'. Nice, round numbers like 95 don't often turn up as the result of a genuine investigation; real, statistical results are much more awkward, of course - for probabilitic reasons, actually: if you could potentially get any number between 0 and 100 as a result, with 2 decimals (which is quite common), then there are about 10000 possible outcomes, and any number would, on the outset, have a probability of just 10E-4 (this is where those who actually understand probability will come and correct me, no doubt).
Apart from that, he is actually right, although he underestimates the number: it should be 100%. All climate models are wrong, we know that. This is because we are dealing with science, where we make observations, construct a model to explain them, make predictions, find that we are not quite right, change the model, and so on. You can even make a joke about this: Scientists know their theories are not The Truth, and what do you call people that tell something that they know isn't true? Yes! All scientists are liars!! (OK, I didn't say it was a GOOD joke)
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Funny)
an old saying goes "if you are right 95% of the time, why argue about the other 3%?"
math: "its hard!"
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Science does not claim to know the truth, but it is indisputably the best way we have to pursue the truth.
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, actually since they quote 95% they're being conservative. 100% of the models are KNOWN to be in error. The questions are always "How much in error?" and "In which direction?". And nobody really knows the answers to those questions, though sometimes there are reasonable estimates.
What he's really saying is "I don't like your answers, so you're wrong. And I don't need to prove it." Since he's politically well connected this is actually largely correct. The only error is logically evident (from my phrasing of "what he was really saying").
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There is no indication that Maurice Newman has any strong Christian views: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
Small government and free market conservatives frequently are not socially conservative. For example, Grover Norquist is on the board of GOProud (LGBT Republicans) and David Koch signed an amicus brief to SCOTUS supporting gay marriage (something he has supported for a long time).
As for "science", Newman's primary points are that the climate change policies proposed by the UN and national governments
Re:Deniers (Score:4, Insightful)
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They're generally not actual conservatives, either. Most of the time they're extreme radicals. Grover Norquist's web site used to have a position paper where he proposed to run the US government debt so high that there would be no budget left for anything but the military and debt servicing. The effect would be to reduce the US government to the size where he "could drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub."
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"Deniers will apparently just claim that "95%" of science is bogus"
They will? What's your source on that?
Or is that just a "prediction" based on a computer model?
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If they were smart they would use a more specific percentage. Something like 96.3%
If you're going to pull a number out of your ass, may as well make it sound authentic.
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Re: Deniers (Score:4, Insightful)
Silly person.
Parent's comments allude to the fact that deniers will ignore the overwhelmingly accepted data that don't fit their world view. Your example alludes to the fact that some people will use the overwhelmingly accepted data to project a worst possible outcome.
Sure they are inaccurate (at least in the short term), but it's not like they're trying to refute the accepted science.
Re: Deniers (Score:2)
I was talking about the consensus papers by Oreskes, Cook, Doran.... Et al.
What are you going on about?
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You haven't made a point, either, since all you did was spread vague FUD.
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A citation for climate alarmists? Come on now, do I also need to show you a citation for the fact that the earth is sphere-shaped and revolving around the sun?
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... will torture and manipulate data until it shows a 97% consensus on silly questions that mean nothing at all.
A citation for climate alarmists?
Citation please?
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Actually, you do. Yes, you DO! No one is born knowing the shape of the Earth...
But I got mine in first grade. Didn't you get one a while ago, or are you four years old?
Re: oblate spheroid (Score:3)
Not sure what your idea of recent is, but I have some pretty old books on mathematical astronomy dating back to the 70's that all refer to the Earth as an oblate spheroid.
Re: oblate spheroid (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure what your idea of recent is, but I have some pretty old books on mathematical astronomy dating back to the 70's that all refer to the Earth as an oblate spheroid.
Usually, you divide the "recent" time by the lifetime of the object in question. So, if we're talking about Mayflies then recent is anytime within the last 18 minutes. Since we're talking about the Earth, then you divide the time since the very early 70s (45 years) by the age of the earth (6000 years) to get 0.7%, so, yeah. That's recent.
~Loyal
Re: Deniers (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. The Earth has recently been shown to not be sphere-shaped (it's more of an oblate spheroid), so if you have data that shows it's actually a sphere that would indeed need a citation.
Strictly speaking, it's not even an oblate spheroid, but very slightly pear-shaped.
For more details, read this excellent essay by Isaac Asimov. [tufts.edu]
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Actually, it has even more recently been shown to be the surface of a 5th dimensional Mobius spheroid.
I'm torn between asking "citation please?" and "you're not from Earth, are you?"
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Go fetch me a scratch Earth and we'll test it together.
Re: Deniers (Score:5, Informative)
When they take the current climate models and plug in the variables (solar insolation, atmospheric gas mix, albedo, etc.) appropriate to Venus, Mars and Titan they get results very close to the actual climates. In other words, the models have been tested and shown to be fairly accurate. Carl Sagan was able to do this with some of the first models back in the late 1970s, and the science and the modeling processes have only gotten better over the last four decades.
In reality, climate modeling has likely saved our civilization if not our entire species once already. It was while playing with those models that the 'Nuclear Winter', the result of a nuclear war, was discovered. Ronnie Raygun and his band of lunatics would likely have launched nukes against the Soviets in eastern Europe if it hadn't been conclusively demonstrated to them that there was no way for anyone to come out of it a winner.
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Imperfect does not imply useless. (Score:3)
If the results match your prediction, then yes that's good evidence, do it a few more times and we've got something serious to talk about.
You mean like climate models correctly predicting phenomena before the phenomena was observed in nature, such as, "Stratospheric cooling", "polar amplification", and the global cooling effect from a large volcanic eruption ( AKA Mt Pinatubo). There are dozens of "blind predictions" for those who care to actually look at the forecasting (and hindcasting) skill of aggregate climate models.
At the end of the day, all of science is a model, the question is why do people who obviously haven't looked at clima
Re:troll (Score:5, Insightful)
the moldy old texts DO have relevance today!
the need to control, scare and dominate people has never changed; we needed it thousands of years ago and we still 'need' it today.
at least, that's WHY religion has not died. its the great lie told to the poor to stop them from overtaking the rich. "you'll get yours later; just let us have what we have and you'll be rewarded later."
mankind's biggest lie, I think. meant only to control and keep people in their place.
its not useful as a book of fact, but as a book of scary stories, its as 'relevant' today as it ever was.
Re:troll (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a (in my opinion) intriguing difference between what the books of the Bible say, and what is taught about them in fundamentalist churches. The disparity is actually very large. But the fundamentalist tendency to reject the facts, even about their own Bible, is truly amazing.
Here, for example, are some fun, readily-proven, facts about what the Bible says:
The word "Trinity" (a core theological concept to Fundamentalism) does not occur in the Bible ever, in any translation. The verses from which this concept is inferred are both scant and sketchy.
The "Holy Spirit" is a mistranslation of "Holy Breath," and in the Greek texts it is *never* referred-to as a person (the words used can equally well mean "it"). The translation to English of "He" is very dubious.
The word "Lucifer" (another core theological concept) doesn't occur *at all* in most translations of the Bible. It should not; it is a Latin word, which doesn't make sense in an English Bible. The relevant text was written in Hebrew, and is a prophesy about the fall of a clearly-identified human king (this is obvious to anyone who reads the whole chapter rather than two verses taken out of context). The popular English translation of "Morning Star" is particularly interesting, since in the book of Revelations, Jesus directly states "I am the Morning Star." Figure THAT out!
Jesus, being famous (in part) for establishing the doctrine of Hell in Christian theology, never once uttered the word "Hell". Aramaic, the language he spoke, didn't even have such a word. He did spend some time making metaphorical references to the valley of Gehenna, which Jerusalem used as the city dump, and which was later mistranslated as "hell" by very dubious logic.
So, the most foundational and distinguishing characteristics of Christian theology aren't even in the Bible...one must translate it strangely and make strange inferences on top of that to arrive at something sort of like what mainstream Christianity teaches.
This group also loves to insist that the Bible never contradicts itself, despite the fact that it clearly does in numerous places. They have a neat trick for resolving these contradictions....whenever two verses seem to say opposite things, one is "interpreted in the context of the other," such that one verse is seen as not really saying what it plainly says. Once you change what a verse says to what you think it actually means, then the contradiction is resolved. For example:
1 Timothy 4:10 "...we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially those who believe."
It does not say "who only saves believers." It clearly says the opposite....until you change it to resolve a contradiction.
I'll stop now. Flame on.
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When in trouble,
Or in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and shout.
-- Heinlein
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Insightful)
They have not shown them to be wrong. They have shown them to be inaccurate. Nobody can predict a system as complex as weather and temperature with 100% accuracy.
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They have not shown them to be wrong. They have shown them to be inaccurate.
You don't think that looks like cognitive dissonance?
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as actual measurements show a steadily increasing temperature, I'd say it's only a question of accuracy of the predictions as to how fast temperatures are rising, not the fact that temperatures are rising.
But the deniers like to play word games and nitpick over whether the models are 100% accurate, implying that they're completely useless just because they aren't perfect. Now THAT is "cognitive dissonance."
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Deniers (Score:4, Interesting)
And nowadays, the divergence between climate models and climate is very large after just a decade or two.
You may call the divergence large but it is still within the published uncertainty ranges of the model output. Until temperatures get outside of that range and remain outside of that range it's impossible to say the climate models are wrong.
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Except the world is not black and white and wrongness is not a binary thing.
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersI... [tufts.edu]
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Interesting)
Take the better models. Apply them with the variables appropriate for Venus. They work. Apply them with the variables appropriate for Mars. They work. Apply them with the variables appropriate for Earth ten million years BCE. They work. Are the models "proven" to be 100% accurate? No, of course not. Are they shown to be accurate with >90% reliability? Yep.
Now take those models and apply them with the variables appropriate to Earth in 100 years with current rates of anthropogenic emissions. The result is something catastrophic for our current model of civilization. Of course the only way to know for sure if the model is 100% accurate is to wait around a century and see if reality deviates noticeably from the model, so I guess we'd best twiddle our thumbs for a few generations.
Re:Deniers (Score:4, Insightful)
"UN climate change projections made in 1990 'coming true'
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yo... [www.cbc.ca]
The news article is based on: http://www.nature.com/nclimate... [nature.com]
We already know that some of the climate models in the 1990's have made two decades worth of accurate predictions.
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an inaccurate scientific prediction is wrong by definition, i.e. it cannot be used to prove anything.
That depends on whether the inaccuracy matters in context.
For example, Newton's laws of motion and gravitation do an excellent job of predicting the motion of the planets. Yet, they have a very small but measureable inaccuracy in the prediction of the precession of Mercury's orbit. Einstein's theory of gravitation corrects this inaccuracy. That doesn't mean Newton's laws are "wrong" -- they just have a limitation to their applicability.
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Pot, meet kettle.
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Multiple studies [washington.edu] have shown [nature.com] that the climate models are wrong.
So will you accept science, or is the cognitive dissonance giving you problems if it disagrees with your pre-determined world view?
They were wrong.
But you are wronger [tufts.edu]
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Informative)
Multiple studies [washington.edu] have shown [nature.com] that the climate models are wrong.
So will you accept science, or is the cognitive dissonance giving you problems if it disagrees with your pre-determined world view?
George Box famously said (not an exact quote) "All models are wrong but some are useful."
Your 2nd cite to the Nature article does not support your argument that models are wrong. There are a lot of quasi-cyclical phenomena that are unpredictable ahead of time (with our current state of knowledge but maybe never) but that show up as emergent properties with random timing in climate model runs. The article shows that when you pick the model runs where by chance the emergent Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation timing matched the real world that the model matched real world temperatures much better. That is solid evidence that the models do a good job of modeling the real world.
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I think the question you need to ask yourself is are your criteria for judging climate models right or wrong valid given the limitations inherent in them. There are a lot of natural variability factors that are impossible for climate models to get the timing right on except by chance. But in the long run they average out so long term (30 years or more) I expect climate models to be relatively accurate.
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And one must point out, that the claims are for "Man Made Climate Change". How they love to just illustrate "Change".
Climate change alarmists are always pointing the finger at our forever-changing climate and laughably claiming "proof".
They have done nothing other than point out that...yeah... our changing climate changes.
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Insightful)
People like you must think that climate changes for magical reasons that are impossible to understand. Scientists on the other hand understand that in any physical system there are physical reasons for the changes they observe. For most scientists their whole reason for doing what they do is to better understand the physical processes that affect our world. It is a truism to say that climate is always changing but it's hand waving to say we can't understand why. Our whole civilization is built on our increasing understanding of the physical world based on the knowledge science gives us.
If you think what climate scientists tell us is a conspiracy to mislead us then it shouldn't be that hard scientifically to destroy their argument. The fact that after over 25 years of intense attention to the issue that hasn't been done is telling.
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Insightful)
Hu what ? (Score:3)
Re:Deniers (Score:5, Insightful)
So thinking that doubling the carbon dioxide and tripling the methane in an atmosphere will cause more heat to be retained is "wild speculation"? It's not a hard experiment to do, honors science classes do this in high school. In every single case the result has always been that more heat is retained. Always. This has been known for a century and a half, what is "wild speculation" about it? Or is your position that there is something magical about Earth's atmosphere that will make carbon dioxide and methane violate the laws of physics? And why would that be, when those gasses function as would be expected on Venus and Mars?
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If a hypothesis built on 100's of years of physics and real world observations from the top of the troposphere to the bottom of the ocean by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of logic minded individuals counts as "wild speculation" in your book, I highly encourage you to check the definitions of "wild" and "speculation". Even if it is all a conspiracy/hoax/any other denialist bullshit, AGW certainly does not qualify as wild speculation.
Another fun game would be to hold yourself to a standard of: results less th
Whether the science it accurate or not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whether the science it accurate or not... (Score:4, Insightful)
Throw another shrimp... (Score:2, Funny)
A conspiracy of academics? (Score:5, Funny)
I've worked in a university and I know full well that getting 3 academics in a room generally means having at least 4 opinions on any given topic. Getting academics to agree on anything is like herding cats. I would almost like there to be a grand conspiracy of thousands of academics. It would be the proof I require that they _can_ be induced to agree on a topic ;p
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Getting academics to agree on anything is like herding cats.
The key to herding cats is to simply move their food-bowl.
And unfortunately that is also pretty well the basic counter as to why all the science agrees - it's because the scientist's food-bowl ($$$) was moved.
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Most scientists do not get grant funding. There goes your theory.
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The big money is with singing on with big pollution-laden fossil fuel companies to deny human-driven climate change. Instead the majority of opinion is with the science rather than the cashflow.
You're forgetting that scientists are left wing liberal hippies working in academia who hate capitalism - because if the liked capitalism then they would be working in private industry.
You're also forgetting that logic seems to have gone out the window in this debate.
Re:A conspiracy of academics? Math MODELS (Score:2)
Get 4 academics/researchers in a room and each will have numerous, and maybe half a dozen "math models" each. Then they pick one they think might be "right." What is not discussed is that models are inherently modeling chaotic systems.
Chaotic systems can flip their path (trajectory or outcome if you will) based on things that occur in the 9th, 12th or 20th decimal point. This is well known to mathematicians.
So, are we to alter society and effectively drain its resources to try to accomplish something tha
Re: A conspiracy of academics? (Score:5, Insightful)
nobody has a grant which depends on finding out that global warming is real.
nobody has that grant because we have known it is real, for sure, since the 1980s
Any academic would stand to make a huge name for himself or herself by finding compelling evidence that it *wasn't* real.
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See? See what you just did?
You completely re-framed the debate on to terms which are easier to defend.
The debate is not over warming. It's over "man made" warming.
The earth has historically been far, far colder and far, far warmer than it is now. Even if the earth was in the middle of a major warming trend (which is questionable from the micro-second of geologic time that we have been paying attention) the issue is important because current *policy* initiatives assume man-made causality.
*That* is
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Yeah, but is the claim that it's a conspiracy plausible or even credible?
Because, you know, the guy who suggests a massive conspiracy among climate scientists, the UN, and everybody else involved .. contrasted against a handful of people who say it must be a conspiracy ... well, I'm more inclined to think the ones claiming the conspiracy are the irrational ones.
This smacks of "I don't like the implications of your science, so I'm going to claim a conspiracy". Which makes you a batshit crazy idiot, not corr
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A "conspiracy" is a "secret plan by a group to do something harmful". He isn't alleging that there is anything "secret".
Even though it may look like it, 1980's hair or 1960's bell bottom pants weren't a "secret plan" to inflict ugliness on the world, they simply happened because people follow fash
Not only in the U.S. (Score:3)
The funny thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Woe is me--such a terrible world! Why did not we do the rational thing and spend all of that money on bombs?! Hindsight, I stab at thee!
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That is the question that gets ignored, on purpose, the 800 pound gorilla.
Why not just reduce pollution?
Anytime I get into a debate with anyone about "climate change" or how much carbon is getting pumped into the atmosphere, I ALWAYS use the argument of reducing pollution. We know for a fact that air pollution contributes to increased rates of heart disease, of asthma in children, to increasing rates of dementia, the list goes on and on, yet the douchebags continue w
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You are asking the key question.
That is the question that gets ignored, on purpose, the 800 pound gorilla.
Why not just reduce pollution?
Anytime I get into a debate with anyone about "climate change" or how much carbon is getting pumped into the atmosphere, I ALWAYS use the argument of reducing pollution. We know for a fact that air pollution contributes to increased rates of heart disease, of asthma in children, to increasing rates of dementia, the list goes on and on, yet the douchebags continue with this "The Planet is Warming Naturally, Its a Cycle"
F#$k you and your cycle.
The general argument against "why not just reduce pollution?" is that some people don't consider carbon dioxide a pollutant. They argue that money shouldn't be "wasted" trying to reduce something that isn't a pollutant when there are actual dangerous pollutants that could be reduced if everyone weren't so focused on carbon dioxide. I'm not saying that I agree with this point of view, I'm just trying to explain it.
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But the production of CO2 is pretty much coterminous with the production of [other] pollutants. Reduce those, and you reduce CO2 as well. What the British supermarkets refer to as a BOGOF.
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'When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.'
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Passive voice alert! (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models ... have been found ... to be in error."
Ha ha ha. He used the notorious passive voice: "have been found". I wonder why?
Clues:
1. Does not specify who did the finding.
2. Provides no link to any actual information.
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http://lmgtfy.com/?q=95%25+of+... [lmgtfy.com]
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Actions vs Words (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for more sustainable industry and living, but what annoys me greatly is when some rich oligarch tells us that we should start living more sustainably. Yet he flew from his third house in the south of France, in his private jet, to said conference to give the speech. Those scientists, politicians, and their associated cronies are never subject to the brunt of their legislative powers.
You'll especially never see a fortune 500 C-level exec taking the sustainable route when it comes to their living.
I'd be more inclined to take a lot of their positions if they actually practiced what the preached. A lot of what I actually see from these people is, "austerity for you and not for me." Why should I live like a pauper so my neo-feudal Lord can consume more nice things for less?.
Re:Actions vs Words (Score:5, Insightful)
You exaggerate. Living a sustainable lifestyle != living like a pauper.
Strawmen everywhere! (Score:5, Funny)
Can I make an appeal that the comments NOT become dominated by the crazies from both sides? Everytime an article like this comes to Slashdot, the prophets of doom come on decrying how anyone not sufficiently panicked and desperate is an insane denier like the bonafide loonie in the article.
After that it devolves into 'proving' the other side is wrong by pointing at the false claims made by the nuts on the opposite 'side'.
sigh, I know it's naive, but it needs saying.
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Readers of slashdot would rather discuss politics than science.
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Model errors (Score:5, Insightful)
...It's a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models ... have been found ... to be in error....
Yes, most, if not all, of the climate are in error. They do not forecast the global climate with 100% accuracy.
.
They never will forecast the global climate with 100% accuracy. So they will always be in error.
However, they currently are accurate enough to forecast a future climate that has problems, and time is running out to prevent those problems from growing so large that they are all but irreversible.
The question is, do we start to address global warming now? Or do we wait until the models have 100% accuracy, at which time it will be too late to do anything about the problem.
Re: Model errors (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you know they are accurate enough? Its just wishfull thinking.
They can't even hindcast properly and they are way off from observed climate. So how the hell can they be accurate enough to forecast future climate trends?
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What is the margin of error of their hindcast and is it within that margin? You do not have to be perfect when predicting this sort of thing, it is kinda like horseshoes, you can get close enough to get the points.
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What is the margin of error of their hindcast and is it within that margin? You do not have to be perfect when predicting this sort of thing, it is kinda like horseshoes, you can get close enough to get the points.
The magnitude of the error is unimportant, to a degree. It's the error trend that is the critical issue.
If my model is wrong by (say) .5 C for any given simulation run but the skew of the error over time is 0 (ie. errors are randomly distributed) then the trend is accurate enough to make some sort of prediction.
If the skew of the errors is != 0, then there is a problem over time: my errors will not cancel out; rather they will skew the model (and therefore the forecast) in a particular direction.
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However, they currently are accurate enough to forecast a future climate that has problems,
Why do you think that? Multiple studies have shown there are problems with the models.
Can't even keep his own lies straight (Score:5, Insightful)
If the President tried to set up something like that, Congress would refuse to fund it, Russia would Veto it, and the French would be against it just because the US was for it.
But even assuming it was possible for the UN to run a conspiracy, his own statements contradict him. Errors do not equal "Conspiracies", they equal incompetence. Conspiracies would involve intentionally falsified data - such as his personal statement that the UN is running a conspiracy.
Birds of a feather (Score:2)
Saying this for his own political gain (Score:5, Informative)
From http://www.smh.com.au/national... [smh.com.au]:
Newman has long sold himself as an intellectual maverick and independent thinker. "He gets mileage out of his climate scepticism," says a former senior Liberal. "It suits him to sustain it."
Newman's assertions - climate scientists call them "zombie arguments", because they keep on popping up - have all been comprehensively debunked, repeatedly and in detail, by national academies of science around the world, including the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the Royal Society of London and the Australian Academy of Science. Andy Pitman, a climate scientist from the University of NSW, tells me that, "Newman's arguments are so wrong they are inconsistent with some fundamental laws of physics."
Really? (Score:3)
The secret is so well-kept, that only he knows it.
Has he _met_the UN?
Whats the UN got to do with it? (Score:2)
CO2 levels started increasing during the industrial revolution when we started burning coal for fuel instead of wood.
This was long before the UN or even the League of Nations
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Clearly, the UN has been conspiring behind the scenes much longer than most suspect.
UN conspiracy? (Score:2)
A Baseball Pitcher throws a fastball (Score:3)
Are you going to wait until you know your model is 100% accurate? After all, a gust of wind can blow the ball off course. A bird could swoop or a meteorite could fall and deflect the ball. Those possibilities wouldn't be realized (or not) until they happen or the ball hits your head. What do you do?
Me? I'd dodge. The risk isn't worth the cost of dodging.
And yes, I am dodging. I've done the stuff that saves me money: efficient appliances and solar panels. I *hope* that everyone tries to do at least that.
I have starting doing stuff that doesn't save me money: planting trees, conserving forests, changing home heating systems, etc. These help the climate change and health problems, but result in a net loss in my financial account. I *don't* expect everyone to do this, just those that can do it, especially those who have made millions or billions from burning fossil fuels. You would expect people around you to clean up after themselves, right? Not solve their problems by dumping them on your yard?